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An anonymous reader writes "Hello Slashdotters, I am totally stumped on how to do this. I would like to create custom subliminal CDs for my own use. I don't trust the CDs for sale in the stores, after all, who regulates that industry and ensures there actually is a message on them, and if so, what is the message? I would like to create positive motivational CDs, or even recite text from study guides/trivia, you name it, and lay it underneath tracks from a custom CD of my favorite bands. What is the best software to use to create such a beast on Windows, Mac, and Linux systems? And conversely, has anyone used any of the music software on these platforms to actually analyze the contents of commercial subliminal CDs? Any advice would be of use...thanks!"

One problem: it may work only with FLAC or some other lossless format. The psychoacoustic masking models in MP3 and AAC encoders are tuned for passing normally audible signals, not for passing "subliminal" signals.

We had some of those on cassette tape and one time I played it 'fast fwd' on a cheap player, basically you hold the play button down part way where it doesn't fully latch, and the hub would pull the tape past the head real fast w/o the capstan regulating the tape speed. Anyway, we could definitely hear a voice in there then, like a faint chipmonk type speech.

Subliminal messaging definitely does work, but maybe not in this format of sub-audible talk under a soundtrack. It's used all the time in visual print advertising.

To answer the question: just record a message track, mix it in with your music track and adjust the volumn so it can't be consciously heard. Use cooledit. A five yo child could do it.

"Anyone in the UK see the program where someone (Derren Brown?) asked a load of advertising people to design a logo and a catchphrase? They made pretty much the exact one that he had put in an envelope before they started.

Derren Brown is a magician. This is a magician's trick. I've seen it done at least a dozen times, by a dozen different people. It has nothing to do with subliminal messages!

"Everything that you experience is in your subconscious somewhere - that's why you can get it back out under hypnosis."

Actually, you can't. It's a popular myth, but it's just not true. Studies have shown that recollection under hypnosis is actually less reliable. Hypnotized subjects, when they can't remember something, have a tendency to make up an answer!

I actually did a research project back in high school (1992) where I made up a bunch of fake vocabulary words and flashed them on the computer screen for varying durations. While at the longest durations the flashing was somewhat noticeable, it was still too quick to read the words.

You can't flash words any faster then the computer screen updates. Back in the Commodore 64 days, I was able to read up to 10-digit sequences, no matter how "quickly" you flashed the digits, because the television works on a 24-Hz cycle, so you can't flash it for less then 1/24th of a second, and furthermore, if it's light text on a dark background, your eyes will still "see" the flash for longer then that.

You need much more sophisticated equipment then any modern computer monitor, let alone a reasonably-priced 1992 monitor, can provide you to test this reasonably.

Just use any DAW application, (Sonar, VST, Protools etc) and record your "new" sublime tracks on top of the usual songs stereo track you import. Mix them down underneath and export in your fav audio format and you too can quit smoking or hail satan or whatever....
Cheers